RemoteFX is Ready!

Shortly after the acquisition of Calista Technologies in early 2008, my family and I packed up our things and started the drive from the beautiful but rainy Northwest to sunny Silicon Valley. I was about to embark on the adventure of leading the integration of technology and people that ultimately resulted in RemoteFX version 1, which is included in Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7.

The journey of shipping version 1 is coming to an end, and we are all very proud of what we are shipping. We believe that we are shipping technology that will change the way that the industry and our customers think about desktop virtualization, Hyper-V, and RDP. RemoteFX truly is a game changer. It is a fundamentally unique and novel approach to solving the problem of delivering the full, rich, modern Windows desktop experience to absolutely the broadest range of remote client devices.

With RemoteFX, partners and customers can unlock new deployment scenarios for desktop virtualization that formerly required a full PC for the best user experience. Now, on a device that is nearly as simple as an LCD display, the Windows desktop experience will be as rich and complete as on a local PC. Users will be able to take advantage of solid state, low power, and inexpensive client devices without giving up the full richness of the Windows 7 platform and its seemingly infinite library of great applications.

Our server-side partners and IT pros will be able to implement these capabilities by letting end users share server-side hardware. This sharing is fundamental to the promise of virtualization. The RemoteFX virtual graphics processing unit (VGPU) enables individual Windows 7 Hyper-V guests to access a slice of a physical GPU while other guests on the same server are doing the same.

Take Empire CLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services, for example. It’s one of the largest chauffeured transportation companies in the world, and more than 75 percent of their work force use VDI. Empire CLS upgraded to Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 to take advantage of improvements in memory management and virtual desktop computing. The company found the reduction in power consumption and the rich graphical user experience with RemoteFX to bring significant advantages to their business.

We are proud to be moving Microsoft to the front of the innovation curve with RemoteFX. Microsoft is serious about Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), and RemoteFX makes our commitment clear.

I encourage you to give RemoteFX a try by installing SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. RemoteFX is supported for Remote Desktop Virtualization Host servers as well as for Remote Desktop Session Host servers.

I want to close by thanking our partners. They have worked closely with us to enable a rich ecosystem of RemoteFX-ready hardware and software solutions for our customers. I am also thankful to all the customers that acted as early adopters and provided us valuable feedback in the Beta and RC timeframe. For months now, we have been hearing positive buzz and excitement from future RemoteFX customers wanting to know when it will be ready to deploy. That time is now!